Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Messy Mittwoch: Recycling & repurposing

As most of you would know, we're currently trying to declutter the house, and are trying to throw, donate, or giveaway various things that we have.  While that is happening, we still do try to recycle or repurpose various items  too (remember how toilet rolls can be a fashionable find?).  Some of these things end up being useful for doing craft with Junior J:

I find the styrofoam trays that come with some veggies (I usually chuck the meat ones since they can be quite icky)
very handy as paint palettes.  They don't get soggy like paper plates, can be washed after some messy paint fun, and last for quite abit.  When you're done with them as palettes, you can also trim off the bottom and use the grid-like patterns for printing on paper!

Food containers are especially useful.  Glass jars end up holding flowers, and we also save some other sturdier plastic containers (eg. cream cheese and yoghurt containers) for the boy to play in his kitchen:

Feeding his brachiosaurus yoghurt during breakfast.  It started with spoon-feeding,
then the poor dino ended being dunked!

Simple, money-saving fun. :)

"Brachiosaurus fall down into the yoghurt!  He's sticky and needs a shower!"
Now repeat this another 10 times until Mama has fed him all his blueberries and cereal...

Here are some more ideas on kids crafts using recycled materials.  I'm thinking of trying out some of them...  Do you recycle and repurpose materials for your kids to play or craft with?  Do share!  (Pssst, I've been enjoying our conversations over on the Facebook page thus far...)



10 comments:

  1. Hi, this is so creative and fun :)
    I reuse the white foam box for bun as 'boat' for his bathing water play, and serveral small yoghurt containers for stacking-up play.
    Those containers for CNY goodies are handy too for keep/sort small toys such as little animal set, dino set, soldier set etc.
    Btw. love the link on recycled material craft that you've shared on the blog. Many interesting ideas. Thanks!

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  2. i had a toilet cry today after a really bad tantrum day at playgroup. and i thought of you...

    xoxo.

    ps sorry it's taken me a month to reply to your email...xoxo.

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  3. I second toilet rolls too! Another great recyclable materials I often use is boxes of any kind like tissue box,gift box, cereal box, etc.

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  4. Love his facial expression in that last pic! Bubbles does the dunking in too when 'feeding' her animals. heh :)

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  5. CE: Oh, you mean those containers for sweets and such with lots of compartments? Its a good idea, since we only use them once a year... thanks for sharing!

    Just Me: Oh no! Sorry to hear about the bad day... Hugs, hope it gets better, you hang in there ok? And yes I got your mail, but haven't been able to reply you yet...

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  6. Susan: We love boxes too... they're so handy as containers and providing cardboard for stuff... ;)

    Corsage: Haha, he was yelling "Fall down!!" then... So funny how they find these things amusing! :)

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  7. Ha... I let Vee play with lots of "junk". Both of us drink fresh milk, so we get to collect 1 cap a day. So far, about 100 caps for playing and math games.

    10 fresh milk boxes serve as bowling pins.

    Cut up fresh milk boxes to store his small toys.

    The plastic containers from veggies / fruits serve as small play trays.

    Old milk bottles, cups, bowls, cutlery as cooking toys. Or to hold paint or play dough items.

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  8. MieVee: Gosh! I won't say those are "junk"! And thanks for sharing, keeping bottle caps for math games is a great idea!

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  9. hey Jus! haha, such a coincidence! I was also talking about using environment prints as toys for Nic several days ago.

    And yes, i collect many - from yoghurt and supplements containers, cereal boxes, milk cartons, cod liver oil bottles to butter tubs.

    You may want to pop by http://www.moremoreplease.com/tv-free-activities/tv-free-talk-playing-working-kitchen/ to see what I did with her too.

    The latest I am doing now is collect tissue boxes ( I have flattened them to keep) and so far, have around 20 over nos. I intend to use this as components for building a big tower.

    Got this idea when I saw a toy which uses big block size - 60plus pieces and costing around $100plus. thought I would try my own. In the process.. will blog on it when it is ready for play. :)

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  10. Sue Ann: Yup, I did read your article previously! Will be looking forward to your new tower-building activity! ;)

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